• Are you living outside of Ireland?
• Have you heard of the good times in Ireland, people spending money like it has gone out of fashion?
• Do you wonder how things are now during the recession?

O.K here are the facts about current recession!

• Ireland will be bigger hit than any country in the world with the current recession more than any country since the 1930s Great American Depression.
• Ireland had the worst performing stock market in the world alongside Vietnam in 2008
• Unemployment has nearly doubled in the last year to April 2009.
• Prices of property have plummeted by almost 20% in the last year, the was the fuel for the Irish economy, 1 in 4 jobs were related to construction.
• Public services have been curtailed such as street cleaning and Public transport. this is due to the drop in passenger numbers but also to the lack of resources available to the Government.
• Car sales are down 65% compared to this time last year.
• Its hard to find work, the dole lines are growing weekly.
• Rental values are plummeting, people can not fill their properties, I had one friend in town, who had is rent lowered by 30% because landlord was worried of losing a tenant, this is very different to 2006, when you had to stand in line to get an interview to take a room in a shared house!

You may say these things all sound negative, as demand has slumped for many goods and services, but hey there is an upside!

• First time I have ever seen discounted beers in the major pubs and nightclubs in Ireland
• Property rental prices have come down.
• Eating out has gotten much cheaper.
• People are in less of a rush and are focusing on more important things in life like family, hey there is no work better concentrate on the people close to you.
• Ireland is also getting back its competitiveness because of the lower wages, the unions may give out cause our diamond workers are getting lower wages creating an unfair and unjust pay cut because of the so called fat cats, but in reality Irish salaries are the envy of the rest of Europe in what were short sited greed filled pay demands which have crippled the company’s finances, they should rename most unions to selfish units! (O.K unions do help people in some cases of wrong doing, but a lot of these lazy stalwarts will down their tools or buses at any lazy excuse to damage the Irish economy, in my opinion this is true greed!